People keep asking whether Amazon stock continuing to rise is realistic right now, especially after AWS just put up its fastest growth in 15 quarters, and this kind of Amazon stock rise rarely happens without solid numbers backing it. A new price target of $321.66 came from 24/7 Wall St, and that number alone pushed the Amazon stock prediction for 2026 conversation forward. AMZN sits close to $247.23, so the fresh target points to roughly 30% more upside, and the AMZN stock forecast now carries a 90% confidence score attached to it.
The AMZN price target for 2026 leans on AWS speeding back up, also on an AI spending plan worth close to $200 billion, and on custom chips that already have billions locked in through signed deals. So is Amazon stock a buy right now, going into the July 30 earnings report? The main Amazon stock rise reason really comes down to AWS posting 28% growth in the first quarter, its fastest pace in 15 quarters, backed by a $200 billion AI spending plan that is already turning into signed customer commitments.
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Amazon Stock Forecast For 2026 With AI Growth & Upside Potential
AWS Growth Hits A 15-Quarter High
AWS revenue hit $37.6 billion in the first quarter of 2026, up 28% from a year earlier, and that is the fastest pace logged in 15 quarters. Total revenue climbed to $181.52 billion too, a gain of 16.6%, while EPS of $2.78 beat the $1.73 estimate by a wide margin. This is a big Amazon stock rise reason, and it is also why the Amazon stock prediction 2026 keeps getting revised upward, and why the Amazon stock rise chatter picked up again after such a quiet stretch. Free cash flow dropped 95% to $1.2 billion, mostly because capital spending climbed to $43.2 billion for the quarter, all tied to the AI buildout Amazon has going right now. Andy Jassy talked about this on the earnings call, and here is what he actually said:
“We’ve never seen a technology grow as rapidly as AI. In the first three years of this AI wave, AWS’s AI revenue run rate is over $15 billion, nearly 260 times larger than AWS was three years after launch.”
Amazon set second quarter guidance between $194 billion and $199 billion, and the next report lands July 30, 2026. That report will really test this whole AMZN stock forecast, and it will tell us if Amazon stock continue to rise holds up under real numbers. This is the Amazon stock rise pattern analysts watch closest heading into any earnings date.
Custom Chips And The AMZN Price Target 2026
Trainium and Graviton chips are running at more than $20 billion a year now, backed by $225 billion in commitments that include deals with OpenAI and also Anthropic, and those numbers keep nudging the Amazon stock prediction 2026 higher, with analysts saying this Amazon stock rise could keep going well past 2026. Andy Jassy explained why he thinks the capex bet pays off, and here is the quote in full:
“Of the AWS CapEx we intend to spend in 2026, much of which will be installed in future years, we have high confidence this will be monetized well, as we already have customer commitments for a substantial portion of it and that it will yield compelling operating margins and ROIC.”
Source: 24/7 Wall St.
Out of 66 analysts covering the stock, 15 call it a Strong Buy and 47 call it a Buy, against just 4 Hold ratings, and that split is basically Wall Street already answering is Amazon stock a buy for you, with most of them betting the Amazon stock rise continues past $300. Wedbush carries a $293 Outperform target, and the bull case goes as high as $369.61. Right now the AMZN price target 2026 sits at $321.66, though 24/7 Wall St thinks that figure could climb toward $523.45 by 2030 under its base case.
Source: 24/7 Wall St.
How AMZN Stacks Up Against Microsoft And Alphabet
Microsoft’s Azure grew 40% last quarter, actually faster than AWS, and its AI run rate sits near $37 billion. Alphabet’s Google Cloud grew 63% to $20.03 billion with a $460 billion backlog behind it, and its 2026 capex guidance of $175 billion to $185 billion is a bit below Amazon’s roughly $200 billion plan. Amazon shares are up 7.11% year to date and 10.43% over the past year, trading about 11% below the 52-week high of $278.56. Long-term debt has grown to $119.1 billion too, and the bear case floor sits at $278.08, which is still 12.48% above where the stock trades today. Even against faster rivals, AWS still has enough scale behind it to make Amazon stock continue to rise sound like a fair bet rather than hype, and it puts the Amazon stock rise story ahead of most other hyperscaler names right now.
The next real test lands July 30, when AWS margins above 35% would keep this AMZN stock forecast on track. The $321.66 AMZN price target 2026 and a Wall Street consensus leaning Buy answer is Amazon stock a buy with a fairly confident yes, at least for now, tied closely to how well all that AI spending turns into actual profit. And that is really the whole Amazon stock rise reason behind the Amazon stock continue to rise story at the time of writing.